1. Field of the Invention
The subject of the present invention is a method for refrigerating fresh food products and keeping them fresh, particularly fruits and vegetables, as well as wine and similar beverages, in a refrigerator which has a closable cold-insulated interior with an evaporator traversed by the refrigerant, which reduces the temperature of the air volume contained in the interior regularly relative to the outside temperature.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The traditional ideal storage space (e.g. cellar) is increasingly rarer to find. The requirements for a storage room are a possibly constant temperature, as well as a relative humidity of 90%. In most buildings, the storage rooms have too high temperatures as well as a too low relative humidity. These inadequate conditions have the result that foods, like fruits, vegetables and potatoes, as well as quality wines, can no longer be stored or only for a very short time.
Conventional refrigerators can not solve this problem either, since they have a relatively small evaporator (hence a small evaporator surface) whose surface temperature is kept below 0 deg.C. This is extremely harmful for the stored material to be refrigerated, since the evaporator surface freezes up immediately and, due to the progressing freezing process, more and more moisture given off by the goods to be refrigerated is transformed on the evaporator into ice, so that moisture is constently withdrawn from the surrounding of the goods to be refrigerated, and the goods to be refrigerated dry out and become unusable.
Perishable foods have mostly a high moisture content (70-90%) so that a relative humidity between 90 and 99% is normally formed on their surface in the equilibrium. This relative humidity must consequently be maintained in the storage space to prevent evaporation of water from unprotected surface. Conventional refrigerators could not prevent the constant withdrawal of moisture from the goods freely stored in the refrigerator, since the evaporator surfaces are always kept at a temperature below 0 deg.C. and the evaporator surfaces are relatively small. This combination of a relatively small evaporator surface with a relatively low surface temperature was selected heretofore to save space in the refrigerator and still provide the refrigerating capacity necessary for conditioning the goods available.